Monday, March 23, 2015

Bus Drive Day!

Hop on. Get behind the line. Sit where the handicapped and elderly do. You’ll get up if one of em shows.

“Buried the shit,” tell Miles.

Miles lifts his hands off the wheel and applauds. Probably a violation.

“Fucker in the ground!” he shouts. “Good for you, Gladys.”

Tell Miles about the last minutes.

“Asked me to forgive!”

“Ha!”

“Asked me to forget!”

“Ha! Ha!”

“Asked me to visit his sister in Tucson and tell her he regretted the bad blood. I have to do that, apparently. It’s a stipulation of the will.”

Miles will say, “Tucson’s nice.”

Sit back in your seat in silence for a while. He’s gone. He was a bastard and his money’s yours. But he was your bastard, and he was who you had at arm’s length for eleven years. He was a bastard, but you only get so close to so many people while they’re here, and he’s gone now.

“How much, Gladys?”

You try to sound excited. You try to sound like a girl who just won the lotto. But you sound like someone who doesn’t know where to turn when you say, “Eleven million.”

Miles laughs for you. He laughs all the way to your stop.

“Won’t be seeing you on this bus again!” Miles shouts.

You smile as you take the first step down. You sob as you take the second. You leap back up and pull Miles into a hug.

“You might see me again,” you tell him.

He pats your back twice.

You get off the bus and make your way across an office plaza to see a lawyer where you’ll listen to the “gold digger” accusations of some of his nephews and their wives.